


Classical music for the Greater Good [Fanmix + Program Notes]

by kittysorceress



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Classical Music, Duel of 1945, Fanmix, Fluff, M/M, Meta, Second War with Voldemort, Summer of 1899, Trying Something a bit Different, headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 07:42:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18687106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittysorceress/pseuds/kittysorceress
Summary: Presenting a musical aesthetic for Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald, from their meeting to their romance, their falling out to their ultimate duel, their lonely years apart and their deaths.This work is a series of 'program notes' about each musical piece and the headcanons about Albus and Gellert which accompany them.





	Classical music for the Greater Good [Fanmix + Program Notes]

**Author's Note:**

> This playlist is available on Spotify [at this link](https://open.spotify.com/user/22i2kqveqkxdpd26i3nn4jh3q/playlist/0qBYwsGy7rWSkeD8Y9H9zD?si=FqGYz0i9Q7Wr92W0n67yEw).

** Part 1: The Summer of 1899 **

  1. **_Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, 1 – Allegro non troppo, Johannes Brahms_**



Composed by Brahms in Austria in 1884 and performed in Germany in 1885, a critic described the call-and-response motif of this movement feeling like ‘being given a beating by two incredibly intelligent people’ and said that ‘there is not another modern piece so productive as a subject for study. It is like a dark well; the longer we look into it, the more brightly the stars shine back’. In my mind, it is a perfect piece to set up Albus and Gellert’s meeting.

Imagine through the start of the piece, Albus is represented by the strings. He is lonely and wasted in Godric’s Hollow, growing more angry and frustrated until Gellert, the woodwind and horns, arrives. He is the equal Albus has sought his whole life until now (1:28). They exchange words like sparring, their debate firing each other into excited frenzy (1:29 – 2:20) and then towards a burgeoning romance, underscored by their mutual passion for knowledge (2:20 – 2.55). Then at last, as the whole orchestra blends together, Albus and Gellert, each bolstered by the other, begin their quest for the Hallows and to rule the Wizarding World together (2.55 – 3.44). And so begins a summer of push and pull, of lunge and parry, the two of them moving in perfect symmetry.

  1. **_Carmina Burana, No. V – Primo vere: Ecce gratum, Carl Orff_**



The fifth movement of In Spring from Orff’s _Camina Burana_ (composed and  first performed in the late 1930s), the lyrics are from a poem in the medieval Latin poetry collection of the same name, and the final part of the second stanza is of particular interest for our aesthetic:

 _illi mens est misera,_  
_qui nec vivit,_  
_nec lascivit_  
_sub Estatis dextera._  
  
_[he is of a wretched mind_  
_who does not live_  
_nor lust_  
_under the hand of Summer]_

This movement calls forth the giddiness and joy of spring and summer, the levity brought by young love, and represents the brightest and the most free of Albus and Gellert’s days together.

  1. **_Carnival of the Animals: Aquarium, Camille Saint-Saens_**



Possibly one of the most recognisable parts of Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals, composed in 1886, this piece is strongly evocative of the mystery and wonder of an aquarium… or, perhaps, of magic.

The cascading melody speaks of awe and astonishment, and when I hear this piece I see Albus and Gellert sitting on the roof, under the stairs, amazing each other with feats of their magic into the early hours of the morning.

  1. **_Ekstasis, Andrew Schultz_**



Possibly one of the most confronting pieces in this collection, _Ekstasis_ (the Ancient Greek word from which we get ‘ecstasy’) is a musical representation of sensuality and sexuality written by Australian composer Schultz in 1990. The lyrics are based on the Song of Solomon and describe love and pain, obsessive lust and spiritual transcendence:

 _Set me like a seal on your heart,_  
_Like a seal on your arm._  
_For love is strong as death,_  
_Jealousy relentless as pain._  
_The flash of it is a flash of fire,_  
_a flame of life itself._  
_Love no flood can drench_  
_no torrents drown._  
_Set me like a scar on your soul,_  
_Like a brand on your body._  
_For love is strong as death,_  
_Time certain as pain._

Albus and Gellert’s relationship has of course, somewhat controversially, been labelled by JK Rowling as ‘intense’. Passionate, intense, a love relationship.

The intensity of feeling wrought through this piece, both through the use of Song of Solomon (which was also an inspiration for [my interpretation of the blood pact scene in ‘rummaging for answers in the pages’](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16917282/chapters/42512327)) and through the use of contrasting dynamics and vocal patterns, is precisely what I think of when I consider this relationship.

  1. **_The Heart Asks Pleasure First/The Promise, Michael Nyman_**



Written for the soundtrack to the 1993 movie _The Piano_ , this piece is named for Emily Dickinson’s poem (below) and is based on a traditional Scottish melody _Gloomy Winter’s Noo Awa_ :

 _The heart asks pleasure first,_  
_And then, excuse from pain;_  
_And then, those little anodynes_  
_That deaden suffering;_

 _And then, to go to sleep;_  
_And then, if it should be_  
_The will of its Inquisitor,_  
_The liberty to die._

In making their blood pact, Albus and Gellert swore their allegiance and made a promise that they would never stand against the other. In this way, they placed each other – their relationship, their pleasure, their hearts’ desires – above all else. But theirs was an allegiance that was soon tested in the most terrible of ways, through Ariana’s death, despite their own quest to be masters over such a human certainty.

  1. **_Requiem in D Minor: Lacrimosa, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart_**



Mozart’s _Requiem_ was unfinished at the time of his death in 1791 and was completed by Austrian composer and conductor Franz Xaver Süssmayr in 1792. The work is music for a requiem mass, a Catholic service for the dead, and the Lacrimosa (Latin for ‘weeping’) is part of the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) sequence:

 _Lacrimosa dies illa_  
_Qua resurget ex favilla_  
_Judicandus homo reus._  
_Huic ergo parce, Deus._

 _[Tearful [will be] that day,_  
_on which from the glowing embers will arise_  
_the guilty man who is to be judged._  
_Then spare him, O God.]_

The tragedy and weeping evoked in this song set the scene for the immediate aftermath of the three-way duel, and the immense loss felt by Albus both through Ariana’s death and Gellert’s betrayal and departure.

And these lyrics make me think of how, after Ariana’s death, Albus avoided Gellert for years lest he find out the truth of which of them had caused her death – that the day they are destined to meet again will be his judgement day.

 

**Part 2: The War **

  1. **_The Hebrides, ‘Fingal’s Cave’, Felix Mendelssohn_**



This concert overture was composed in 1830, following Mendelssohn’s visit to the Scottish Hebrides, specifically the island of Staffa. This uninhabited island is known for its beautiful and unusual geology of basalt columns, and its sea cave – Fingal’s Cave, named after the hero in James Macpherson’s 1790 epic poetry cycle _Ossian_.

For me, this beautiful piece of music represents Albus’ early years of teaching at Hogwarts: starting his life over again after that dramatic summer, finding a new purpose in teaching. During those years, he slowly builds his reputation and grows his network, little by little, knowing in the back of his mind that one day Gellert is sure to return, to put into motion those horrible things they once had planned. And so he bides his time.

  1. **_Sonata No. 23 ‘Appassionata’, Ludwig van Beethoven_**



This sonata, composed between 1804 and 1806, was not given its moniker of ‘passionate’ until a publication in 1836. It is one of Beethoven’s more emotional and tempestuous sonatas, and this first movement is recognisable for its sudden changes in tone and volume (dynamics) and its ominous theme.

As the last piece represents Albus during the lead-up to their legendary duel, so this piece represents Gellert - quiet poise interspersed with wild passion. While Albus teaches, Gellert builds his empire in the ballrooms of the European magical elite, in their parlours, and sometimes even their bedrooms. But below his veneer of respectability, his darkness simmers, moving ever closer to boiling point, until at last he can wait in the shadows no longer… and so he travels to the United States of America to assume the identity of Percival Graves and track down the obscurial he is determined to have by his side at the final battle.

  1. **_Scythian Suite (Ala and Lolly), No. 2 – The Evil God and the Dance of the Pagan Monsters, Sergei Prokofiev_**



Originally written in 1915 for a ballet, this orchestral suite premiered in 1916. This movement is the second of four and musically depicts the Scythians making a sacrifice to Ala, the daughter of the Slavic god of the earth, waters, and the underworld, Veles, while The Evil God and his monsters dance.

This dramatic piece symbolises the build-up to a great battle in its original story, and so too I believe it creates a vivid soundscape for the final clash in 1945 between Grindelwald’s Acolytes and Dumbledore’s proto-Order of the Phoenix.

  1. **_The Rite of Spring, Part 2: The Sacrifice, No. 1 – Introduction, Igor Stravinksy_**



When _The Rite of Spring_ premiered in 1913 during the Paris season of the Ballet Russes, the reaction from the audience was described as a ‘riot’ due to the shock at how avant-garde the music was. It is now considered one of the most influential pieces of the 20th Century. Part 2, the Sacrifice, portrays a pagan ritual in which a young girl is selected and dances herself to death.

When I think of how the final duel between Albus and Gellert must have happened, I imagine the two of them meeting in a ruined landscape far from the main battleground, Grindelwald’s Acolytes having been defeated. Each of them has come from their camp, a martyr for their cause, their duel is a symbol of a resolution that, one way or another, the battle will end with a sacrifice.

  1. **_Nox aurumque, Eric Whitacre_**



This choral piece was composed in 2009 as Whitacre’s seventh collaboration with poet Charles Anthony Silvestri. Silvestri describes the process of writing these lyrics: “[Whitacre] communicated impressionistic images of an angel, the emotions of that angel, and other evocative images, darker than usual for him. My text had to speak to those images in a meaningful way, consistent with Eric’s intentions for the piece.  It has a distinctly different sound than earlier works, and I wanted my text to be darker, and as different.”

 _Aurum,_  
_Infuscatum et obscurum,_  
_Canens noctis,_  
_Canens mortis,_  
_Acquiescens canendo…_

 _Et angelum somnit aurorarum et bellorum,_  
_Saeculorum aurorum fundit lacrimas,_  
_Lacrimas rerum bellorum._  
_O arma!_  
_O lamina aurata!_  
_Gestu graves nimium,_  
_Graves nimium volatu._

 _Aurum,_  
_Infuscatum et torpidum_  
_Suscita!_  
_Dilabere ex armis in alam!_  
_Volemus iterum,_  
_Alte supra murum;_  
_Angeli renascentes et exultantes as alas_  
_Aurorarum,_  
_Aurorum,_  
_Somniorum._

 _Aurum,_  
_Canens alarum,_  
_Canens umbrarum._

 _[Gold,_  
_Tarnished and dark,_  
_Singing of night,_  
_Singing of death,_  
_Singing itself to sleep._  
_And an angel dreams of sunrise,_  
_And war._

 _Tears of the ages._  
_O shield!_  
_O gilded blade!_  
_You are too heavy to carry,_  
_Too heavy for flight._

 _Gold,_  
_Tarnished and weary,_  
_Awaken!_  
_Melt from weapon to wing!_  
_Let us soar again,_  
_High above this wall;_  
_Angels reborn and rejoicing with wings made_  
_Of dawn,_  
_Of gold,_  
_Of dream._

 _Gold,_  
_Singing of wings,_  
_Singing of shadows.]_

Imagine, at last, Albus and Gellert face each other for the first time in nearly forty years. Albus is struck by how angelic Gellert looks – golden, albeit tarnished around the edges – against the devastated landscape.

But defeating him brings none of the catharsis which Albus sought. Instead, as he brings Gellert to heel and takes the Elder Wand into his possession, Albus feels even more hollow and broken than he had at Ariana’s death, at their first parting… because this is truly the end of Gellert Grindelwald’s pursuit of the Greater Good.

Now, Albus must take up the mantle in his own way, for the rise of a new evil is just around the corner.

 

**Part 3: The Aftermath**

  1. **_Sleep, Ivor Gurney_**



Based on a poem of the same name by Elizabethan poet John Fletcher, _Sleep_ was composed by Gurney in 1913-14.

 _Come, Sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving_  
_Lock me in delight awhile;_  
_Let some pleasing dreams beguile_  
_All my fancies; that from thence_  
_I may feel an influence_  
_All my powers of care bereaving!_

 _Though but a shadow, but a sliding,_  
_Let me know some little joy!_  
_We that suffer long annoy_  
_Are contented with a thought_  
_Through an idle fancy wrought:_  
_O let my joys have some abiding!_

The insomnia and sorrow wrought through the lyrics call to mind for me the years Gellert spends locked in the tower of Nurmengard, tormented by the thoughts of the terrors and atrocities he had wrought during the war.

  1. **_Invocation, Op. 19, No. 2, Gustav Holst_**



Hauntingly beautiful, this piece for cello and orchestra composed in 1911 is mediative and measured in its melody, with a romantic style which is unlike his later and more famous compositions. It was composed while Holst was working at St Paul’s Girls School in London, where he taught until his death in 1934.

Imagine, through this work, Albus learning his new roles at Hogwarts – as headmaster and war hero, and then as leader of another movement against dark forces all too soon. Despite how busy he had become, sometimes, in moments of quiet and introspection, he lets his mind stray to that high tower in Austria and wonders what has become of the man he triumphed over.

  1. **_Chacony in G Minor, Henry Purcell (Transcribed by Benjamin Britten)_**



Purcell was one of the best known British composers of the 17th Century. It is unclear when this chacony was composed exactly, possibly around 1680, and whether it was intended as incidental music for a play or as a concert piece in its own right, but it gained new popularity in the mid 20th century after being transcribed by Britten in the late 1940s and published in 1965.

I love the tragedy imbued in this piece and I think it a perfect setting for the year before Albus’ death, as he is setting into motion the pieces of the puzzle for Harry to decipher and defeat Voldemort. Steady, assured, clever, but altogether heart-breaking.

  1. **_My Love Dwelt in a Northern Land, Op. 18, No. 3, Edward Elgar_**



This a cappella choral piece was written in 1889, based on a poem by Andrew Lang and adapted by Elgar’s wife Caroline. The lyrics have a popular theme of poetry of that time - youthful love, often unfulfilled or brought to an end by premature death.

 _My love dwelt in a Northern land:_  
_A dim tower in a forest green_  
_Was his and far away the sand_  
_And gray wash of the waves were seen_  
_The woven forest boughs between:_

 _And through the Northern summer night_  
_The sunset slowly died away,_  
_And herds of strange deer, silverwhite,_  
_Came gleaming through the forest gray,_  
_And fled like ghosts before the day._

 _And oft that month we watched the moon_  
_Wax great and white o'er wood and lawn_  
_And wane, with waning of the June,_  
_Till, like a brand for battle drawn,_  
_She fell, and flamed in a wild dawn._

 _I know not if the forest green_  
_Still girdles round that castle gray._  
_I know not if, the boughs between,_  
_The white deer vanish ere the day:_  
_The grass above my love is green,_  
_His heart is colder than the clay._

I think that in those last few months before his death, before Voldemort came seeking the Elder Wand, Gellert found himself thinking of the summer he and Albus had shared together. He thought of how Albus had described Hogwarts, its lake and its forest, and now wished for a life he had missed an opportunity for – one where he had stayed with Albus, where they had taught at Hogwarts together, where no one had duelled, no one had died, no sides had been taken, and love had reigned supreme.

It was this fantasy that he thought fondly of as he breathed his last, protecting his erstwhile lover’s secret.


End file.
